Category: Animation

Dreamworks is an animation studio that usually aims to match the level of Pixar’s visual beauty, but rarely do they reach that level of storytelling. Home comes as a bit of a surprise in that it’s a bland dud in both categories. You need only compare the movie to Dreamworks’ projects of last year: the fantastical splendor of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and the quick wit of Penguins of Madagascar. By comparison, Home feels so stock and simple that it is as though it were produced by a studio struggling to be a Dreamworks production.

The design is just a bore. The gummy-shaped aliens known as the Boov are squat and simple beings that all look alike. I sensed a channelling of the formula for Minions, but those banana-colored, pill-shaped guys at least had a few differentiating designs to tell them apart. These aliens all seem as though they were clones, differing only in voice and maybe a mustache. But for as doe-eyed and cute as Dreamworks aims to make the Boov, they grated on my nerves with their annoying stupidity and inability to find a proper home planet. They’re led by an idiot of a king voiced by Steve Martin that has no idea how to lead, but plenty of time to babble in Steve Martin lingo. Somehow they manage to conquer Earth by vacuuming all the humans and quarantine them to Australia. How this tactic differed from their earlier conquering methods – where the Boov couldn’t handle carnivorous beasts or giant robots – is never answered. Perhaps Earth decided to destroy all their weapons. It’s the only acceptable reason how this invasion went so flawlessly.

The Boov are such ridiculously uneducated creatures – invading a planet where they don’t even comprehend how a toilet works – that the runt of the litter has to be incredibly foolish. So unlikable is this character that he has been designated as Oh (Jim Parsons), named after the sigh induced by his presence. All the Boov make loads of mistakes, but Oh is singled out considering his mistakes mostly damage his entire race. You can almost smell the heartfelt message about being an outcast careening towards the second act.

When Oh causes one too many culture-destroying errors, he goes on the lam to find a new home in Antarctica. Along the way he picks up the only human girl outside capture – a plucky preteen named Tip (Rihanna). She’s not a very interesting character outside of seeking her mom and acting as the straight character to the goofy Oh. They go ahead on their little road trip to their locations of choice, becoming best of friends along the way while they learn valuable lessons about family, friendship and all that jazz.

I don’t like walking into a movie where I can predict its outcome and my opinion, but there was a little voice in the back of my head that just screamed this movie was a product of an assembly line. All promotional materials seemed to suggest that this movie was rushed from Dreamworks’ template where they forgot to remove the placeholder content. They designed cute aliens, but didn’t make them unique. They added in a kid-relatable character, but forgot to give her personality. They staged a large-scale chase across an iconic city, but forgot to make it thrilling. They made the story family friendly, but threw out a truckload of logic in its world to make it so. They even jump the gun by relying on the tired device of dancing to pop music far too early that the inevitable finale of a dance party fizzles out any entertainment.

Home may seem as a cute little animation for the kids, but it’s overly fluffed up with soft content that even the kids will grow weary of its artificial sweeteners. There’s no imminent threat to make it thrilling, no big challenges for the characters to conquer and no daring nature to the story or its comedy. It’s a passive movie that will not offend with any violence or scary scenes, but won’t be uniquely entertaining either. And this is precisely why I can’t recommend the picture in that there is hardly any excitement or risk. Animated films should inspire the imagination of children with characters they can identify with and visuals that stimulate wonder. They shouldn’t just distract with a few crude jokes about urine, add in a familiar song with dancing and send them on their way.

And as long as I’m coming down hard on the movie, I might as well admit it: I hated the Boov. I didn’t like their design, their character or the culture. By the end of the picture I was hoping a large alien armada would swoop in to zap these little guys into globs of gelatin. Are these the kinds of thoughts a grown man should be having during an animated children’s movie which just wanted to be sweet and silly? Chalk that up to one more reason not to see this picture.

Once more I venture into the limitless void of the TV movie franchise Monster High. Intended as little more than a commercial for the brand of monster themed dolls, I desperately search for something to latch onto from the perspective of an adult male. I’m not picky – a clever use of dialogue, some decent character development, good looking animation or even just one small gag that makes me chuckle. I don’t walk into this endless array of Monster High movies expecting the worst every time. I genuinely pop in each disc hoping that this will be the one – this will be the movie where I finally see that hidden power of Monster High outside its marketing angle. Sadly, this is not that movie.

But let’s be fair. This is not the worst Monster High movie I’ve seen. The story at least has a decent angle. One lucky student specializing in fashion, Clawdeen Wolf (trademarked), receives the chance of a lifetime to travel to Scaris, France and compete for an apprenticeship with a top designer, Madame Ghostier (trademarked). That’s not a half-bad idea considering it’s within the wheelhouse of the franchise and the characters. The whole Devil Wears Prada plot allows for some unique characters added into the mix as well including a skeleton girl with a painted skull. No devil designer present though which could have made for some better jokes. It’s a genuine surprise from a series where all the characters look virtually identical and rely entirely on references and bad puns for comedy.

And, oh, how I wish there was something more to enjoy. The flat characters of simple phrases and traits seriously hamper the story that aims to include as many monsters as possible. Very little of Scaris takes advantage of the French location and theme outside of the cartoonish stereotypes. Then again, there isn’t much to showcase from the TV-budgeted animation of the stretchy CGI animation. The movie could at least take advantage of the monster angle which it almost always fails to capitalize on.

There’s one gag that manages to be effective as the girls remark on the skeletons in the catacombs. Turns out they’re just taking naps and shush anybody who wakes them. It’s a decent joke, but how does that explain an underground prison cell where it implies the last person wasted away to a skeleton? Does that imply that they still live on as a skeleton? Or can they become more accepted if they wear clothes and paint their skull? Are the catacomb skeletons actually hobos? Why do I keep asking these questions about a cartoon for little girls?

The most annoying aspect of the whole movie is that the plot refuses to stick to its running time. The real story wraps up about 40 minutes in. The remaining 20 are reserved for the ride back home in which the monster girls and boys hop around the globe to retrieve their luggage. The movie doesn’t even bother transitioning well into this segment by stating “hey, don’t you want to see how we got back?” Not really. You got on a plane, right? Oh, you had to make some detours to get back some mystical book that doesn’t really have any major consequences? Why did I need to see this? I’m perfectly content if the movie were only 40 minutes. This segment doesn’t really add anything extra to the story. It should be its own short or bonus episode included on the disc – not an excuse to bloat up a movie to an hour.

Scaris, City of Frights may be the only half-decent movie I’ve seen out of Monster High, but it’s still held back if not by its one-dimensional characters then for its short story (which required an extra episode just to make it an hour). Once again, I must preference this review in that I’m not in the target audience. I’m not 12, a girl or collect the dolls. I’m just an adult man writing a negative review about a cartoon movie made specifically and unquestionably to sell toys to little girls.